


Shadowy Hands

by PurpleArrowzandLeather



Series: Kings and Queens of Hearts [12]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Prophecies, Sibling Love, Sorry Not Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 04:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20333749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleArrowzandLeather/pseuds/PurpleArrowzandLeather
Summary: Cayde receives the bad news and flies to the Reef to speak with Mara Sov.





	Shadowy Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Really, this should be read after the last fic in the series, and if you didn't read that before, you definitely should go back. Other than that, enjoy! :)

Cayde is wary the moment he touches down on the Reef. Mara meets him, her arms curled over her chest. It’s the most vulnerable he’s ever seen her. The transmission Uldren’s crows sent him was fairly frantic, but the situation is the worst Cayde has heard in a while. Both Ikora and Zavala transmat in as Mara is leading him away. Mara demanded their presence, so there they stand. Petra approaches them and directs them to a secluded corner. 

The Reefborn and the crows all understand just how personal this is going to be. 

Mara pauses as they pass Uldren’s room, squeezing her eyes shut and forcing herself to move on. Cayde peeks inside the cracked door. He’s stunned into stillness by the sheer amount of blood everywhere. 

“Come, Cayde-6. We cannot dwell.” 

He wonders if she’s trying to convince him or herself. Her posture is still regal, but her rich voice is now quiet. Mara’s expression is blank, as it so often is. 

Cayde places a hand on her shoulder, bowing a little as she turns with a dangerous light in her eyes. “With respect, Mara, you don’t have to be alone. Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting.” 

The glare softens into something almost gentle. She reaches one hand up to clasp his, smiling sadly. “Right as you may be, Cayde-6, a queen’s duty doesn’t stop after a death. I must continue to serve my people faithfully.” 

“And you will, but I’m sure your subjects can allow for mourning. He was your little brother, Mara.” 

“I don’t need you to tell me that.” 

Cayde lifts a metal brow. “Then someone needs to tell you it’s all right to feel. Pushing it down will only make it worse. Trust me, I know from experience.” He sighs at her look. “And no, you don’t have to tell me that I sound like a head-shrinking quack.” 

Mara hums, beckoning him to her side. She takes his arm when he offers it. “I wasn’t going to say a word.” 

The infirmary is the first stop and Mara walks straight to Kayleigh’s side. They’ve changed her into light robes, much like her Warlock gear but not so thick. The swirl of her Awoken skin is subdued and Cayde reaches out to touch her hand just to reassure himself she’s alive. 

“Coma?” 

Mara nods. “I’ve tried to contact her, but her mind is barely tethered here.” 

Cayde stares down at his fallen friend, his sensors picking up her life signs. Even physically healthy, her vitals are weak. Wash hovers close to the Ghost on the table next to her. 

“J?” 

The Ghost shifts a little, but it doesn’t lift from the table. “Wash?” 

Cayde’s Ghost nuzzles hers, settling down beside him in quiet companionship. Cayde understands the need for a little comfort. Two of the people he loves are beyond his reach, one never to return. Cayde takes the chair that Mara pushes behind him, slumping into it and rubbing his forehead. 

“And there’s nothing we can do?” 

Mara shakes her head. “I’ve had every healer I could find look at her, but... there’s almost nothing left.” 

“So... you’re saying that she’s gone? She doesn’t know we’re here, or even-” He breaks off. “Or even who she is?” 

The Reef queen sits down in her own chair, shaking her head. “There’s no telling how much she knows. She may not even realize that she’s still alive at this point. Losing Uldren.... It destroyed her. A bond like the one between them hasn’t been forged in centuries, much less broken. The fact that she’s a Guardian is the only reason she’s alive at all.” 

Cayde leans forwards to take her still hand again, lowering his gaze. “If that.” 

“She may yet return, Cayde-6. Do not lose hope.” 

The Hunter Vanguard gives her a long look. “Then... I should tell you the same thing. I don’t know when it’s supposed to happen. A year from now, twenty, a thousand, but... Uldren is going to be resurrected as a Guardian.” 

Mara eyes him. “How do you know this?” 

“The Hunter high priest says so. He was one of our original Vanguard. The most powerful. There were a lot more Vanguard, but three were, kind of, guides for the leaders.” 

“Says, does he? So, he’s still alive?” 

“Yeah, it’s a, uh, long story. A little over three hundred years ago, actually.” 

Mara considers him, nodding once to herself and standing up. Cayde follows out of courtesy and she loops her arm through his again. He can’t help but think that it’s so similar to the way he and Hawthorne walk together, yet completely different. 

“What of your wife? Where is she?” 

Cayde winces, wondering if she can touch his mind the way she does regular people. “I... haven’t told her what happened yet. Still tryin’ to figure out how to break the news.” 

“Gently.” 

Cayde manages a weak laugh. “That’s part of the plan anyway. I just.... Really, I’m more worried about what I’m supposed to tell Akaiya.” 

Mara is quiet. Cayde knows that she loves Akaiya just as much as anyone else who has ever met his daughter. The idea of anything hurting her makes him tense up, but Mara quickly soothes him with a careful hand on top of the one looped around her arm. In that last few years since meeting Kayleigh, Mara has grown a lot in the sibling management department. Uldren must certainly have been a handful. 

He heard from the Crows that Uldren actually had a sense of humor once upon a time. It’s hard to believe because of how seriously he takes the world around him... or took, anyway. 

Cayde never imagined the Reef to be the kind of place with a morgue, but he was wrong. At current, the only two bodies around are the Drifter and Uldren’s. Mara’s eyes narrow when she gazes upon the man who killed her brother. The shattered remains of his Ghost lay on a table nearby, the shards the perfect proof that he’s truly gone. 

“Burn it.” Cayde growls. 

Mara’s eyes lift to his at the odd pronoun. 

He pulls the cloth covering him back up, his words clipped. “Burn it. I never want to see this pathetic excuse for a Guardian again. Put the Ghost in a box and see what you can trade Xur for it. I don’t care.” 

She seems surprised, but she motions to one of her attendings to do as he says. “As you wish it, Cayde-6.” 

It’s unlike him, he knows, to seem to cold and heartless, but this is the Guardian who murdered one of his few remaining friends and damn near killed the other. Cayde’s not about to watch him be memorialized. 

Why does everything he cares about continue to crash down around his head? 

He steps over to Uldren’s corpse, the usually-shifty man completely still. His countenance is soft, but the corners of his mouth are turned ever-so-slightly downwards. All those smiles that Kayleigh pried from him appear to have been for nothing. He won’t remember, so why does it matter to him so much? 

He can’t help it. Uldren was his friend. If Cayde lives long enough to see it, maybe they will be when Uldren is brought back by the Traveler. He wonders if Kayleigh and Uldren will still find each other. 

Then again, he doesn’t even know if Kayleigh will recover. 

All the things he can’t fix swirl around in his head and he whirls to take a swing at the wall. Plaster crumbles around his hand and he has to brace his opposite palm against the wall to steady himself. His head hangs lower than his arms yet, and he’s grateful for the hood shadowing his optics and lights. All of them have turned to a furious blood red, his core temperature getting higher by the second. 

With exaggerated care, he tugs his fist from the wall, shaking dust and rocks from his gloves. He leans there, waiting for Mara to say something with her usual drawling warning, but it never comes. He has to calm down before he can look at her, but all he sees in her expression is sorrow. 

If Kayleigh doesn’t pull through this, the only people he really has left from before his Vanguard days are Shiro and Amanda. Malek only sort of counts. He and Ikora were barely acquaintances then and Zavala never spoke to him unless he had to. 

He keeps losing everyone, Guardian or not. 

It’s a chilling thought that one day he might lose Akaiya and Hawthorne. Akaiya’s chances as a Guardian are much better than Hawthorne’s as a normal human, but he has a hard time staying positive about that when previous experience says none of it matters. 

Is this how Malek felt while trapped in stone? Knowing that those he considered family were dying all around him and being unable to change any of it? 

Many times, Cayde has thought foresight is a gift, but it appears he was wrong. 

He huffs to himself, staring at Uldren’s still form with exasperation at himself. How could he ever have thought his bad luck wouldn’t come back to bite him? How could he have been so naïve? 

“This is not your fault, Cayde.” 

Cayde offers her a weak smile. “We knew it would happen, and then we pretended that everything was going to be okay. We could have protected him.” 

Mara places a hand on his shoulder, closing her eyes against the sight of her battered sibling. “There are some things you cannot escape. Fate just happens to be one of them.” 

“Fate has been screwing me over since day one.” 

“It’s not our job to change it, even if we could or already have.” 

“Mara-” 

She silences him. “You said it yourself. Uldren will return. Whether or not he remembers is of no consequence. He’ll be one of you, and if we are still alive by that point, we’ll take care of him.” 

Cayde is quiet for a long time before taking note of her words. “What did you mean by ‘could or already have’ changed fate?” 

Mara arches a brow. “Are you sure you want to know?” 

“Yes.” 

She hesitates for the first time since he’s known her. “Fate has not been, as you so delicately put it, screwing you over. Kayleigh, from the moment she was reborn as a Guardian, has been twisting it. I’ve never seen anything like her before in all my time as Queen. She is_ powerful_, Cayde. More powerful than any of us truly realize, and that includes me.” 

“The point being?” 

She glowers a little, but she doesn’t mean it. Her expression softens just enough to warn him that she’s going to drop a bombshell. “You were meant to die by Uldren’s hand. I saw it in the wishing well.” 

Cayde blinks. “You knew I was going to die and didn’t warn me?” 

“Yet here you stand, safe and sound.” 

It’s a little bit of a shock to his system to think that Kayleigh is controlling his life and the lives of everyone around him, but the look Mara gives him lets him know that the idea is stupid. 

“She doesn’t control your life, but her struggles can alter the flow just a little.” 

Cayde pauses, trying to think it through but not getting anywhere. “Nope. You know what? That’s... too complicated. I’m good with you not trying to explain all of it.” 

He stares down at Uldren’s lifeless form. The stoic Awoken never seemed worried about his fate. He never fought it, simply living through the time he had left with dignity and purpose. Cayde could almost admire Uldren for that, but it’s hard to admire those who are gone. He’s met a lot of brave people, but... Uldren was – Cayde never thought he’d think it – courageous in a way that many Guardians aren’t. The Darkness consumed him, and yet when the Light called out for him, he returned to it. Or rather, Kayleigh. 

Who wouldn’t? 

Cayde glances between his two friends, taking comfort in the Queen's steady presence. Uldren was meant to be irredeemable, but she pulled him from the edge the same way she does for all of them. And to think that Uldren was bound to her so fully that Malek could sense it before the two ever met. 

Everything hinged on Kayleigh, and maybe it’s making an assumption, but he would bet it still does. Both of them, actually. That’s why Uldren has to come back as a Guardian. 

Cayde isn’t.... happy, exactly, but he’s reassured by the knowledge that both of his friends still have a part to play. After all, it’s because of Kayleigh that the dominoes fell in his favor and it would be careless of him to underestimate her. Coma or not, Cayde is willing to bet that she could beat the odds from beyond the grave. 

Trailing - wandering really - back to the infirmary towards the bed where Kayleigh is sleeping, he smiles down at her. Whether she knows it or not, he’s proud of her. Has been since day one, even if she never needed his pride to be who she is. Because of that, he settles down in the chair again. Whatever happens between now and when Uldren comes back, Cayde will be waiting. 

She’d do it for him in a heartbeat, and has in the past. It’s Cayde’s turn to return the favor. 


End file.
